“Today,” Lewis wrote to his parents, “was typical for its routine. Morning briefing followed by bombing practice; back for lunch (good), then more practice. I don’t ask why. Nobody does.”
The letter would be read by Manhattan Project agents attached to the base post office. They would decide it did not contravene security and allow it to be mailed. The many letters that failed to pass ended up on Uanna’s desk. The watchful major made sure the writers were sufficiently scared by the time they left his office to be more careful in the future about what they wrote home.
Three hundred blockbuster casings were available for the crews to use on their practice missions to the Salton Sea. Cameramen continued to film the bombs dropping and the aircraft making their jolting 155-degree turns.
The maneuver, practiced both left and right, was the subject of much speculation. Pilots soon discovered that failing to execute a proper turn meant being temporarily grounded. Such punishments were an integral part of Tibbets’s method. He also encouraged excellence by example. He himself had flown several runs, with Lewis as his copilot, and performed the turn perfectly.
The bombing circle was being steadily reduced. Now it was no more than four hundred feet in diameter. Ferebee had demonstrated it possible to drop a casing into the circle from thirty thousand feet. Van Kirk proved that on long training flights, and over water, it was feasible to navigate the distance with no more of an error than half a mile. The workshops remained open twenty-four hours. The flight line worked around the clock keeping the bombers aloft.
Mess officer Charles Perry was told by Tibbets that if he had any problems, “just use the word Silverplate.” Perry was skeptical. But one day, tired of arguing with a food-supply depot, he had used the code word. His goods had arrived within hours. Every air force depot in America had special orders to give priority to Silverplate.
The 393rd became the best-fed unit in the service. Tibbets had been known to send a transport plane a thousand miles to collect a cargo of tropical fruit. Fresh fish from New Orleans, Miami, and San Francisco were regular items on Perry’s menus. On one occasion, Tibbets himself flew an eighteen-hundred-mile round trip to Portland, Oregon, to pick up a load of coffee cups.
He took care of his men in other ways. When they tangled with police in Salt Lake City over traffic violations or rowdy behavior, or got involved with the local married women, he intervened—if a man’s work record justified it.
Executive officer John King struggled to maintain the standards of discipline he thought essential. But Tibbets made it clear he was not overly concerned with smart salutes, knife-edged creases in khakis, or gleaming toecaps. All that concerned him was a man’s capacity to work well. Gradually, the 393rd became one of the most casually attired units in the air force. Earlier in November Tibbets had introduced a new pilot with the most unusual appearance of alclass="underline" bobbed hair, rouged cheeks, and bright red lipstick. Baggy flying coveralls could not disguise a shapely figure.
“Sure, she’s a lady,” grinned Tibbets as he presented the newcomer. “And they don’t fly any finer than Dora Dougherty.”
Dora was a veteran pilot who had worked for Tibbets on the B-29 testing program. She had handled the bomber with great skill and assurance at a time when many men pilots were doubtful of its capability. Dora once deliberately cut an engine on takeoff and yet became airborne. On another occasion, she landed a B-29 with an engine on fire. At Wendover, Dora flew a transport. Sometimes Tibbets wished he could send her up with a B-29. But Dora never complained about any assignment.
Many crewmen were complaining about the training schedules, the long hours, the continual security checks. And, above all, why didn’t somebody explain what this was for?
In the words of Captain King, the feeling was growing “that there were ‘them’ and ‘us.’ ”
Or: Tibbets, Ferebee, and van Kirk; and the rest of the 393rd.
The trio worked and relaxed together. Occasionally, Lewis joined the group. But the once-close relationship between Tibbets and Lewis was cooling. Tibbets felt Lewis was increasingly trying to take advantage of their past association. He was no longer amused by Lewis’s determined forays after women, his partying, the aggressive way he approached everything: cards, volleyball, even conversation.
But in the air Lewis continued to excel. In the end, that was what Tibbets cared about.
Beser did not like flying with Lewis “because we had nothing in common.” As for the pilot, he had not discovered why the radar officer “brought along a bunch of boxes and tried to look important.”
Beser enjoyed the mystery surrounding his function. He was regularly—and unsuccessfully—pumped about his visits to the restricted Tech Area, and the flights he and Tibbets made together to Albuquerque. No flight plans were filed for these journeys.
At Los Alamos, Beser received further instruction in the intricacies of electronic countermeasures. He would return to Wendover with Los Alamos technicians. They would spend days in the Tech Area helping Beser practice analyzing the intensity variation of successive return waves, or identifying the location, speed, and course of a reflecting object.
After Beser had become familiar with some of the bomb’s secret radar system, a security agent was assigned to guard him day and night whenever he left the base. The man took his job so seriously that he even stood guard outside a public toilet in a Salt Lake City restaurant while Beser relieved himself. The radar officer reacted characteristically.
“Listen, Mac. People will think there’s something funny about me, with you standing there.”
“You listen, Lieutenant. I’m supposed to be in the john with you—not outside!”
Beser gave up. From now on, he must share every social occasion—a date, a drink with friends, a visit home to his family. In time, he came to accept his shadow.
Only at Wendover did he feel really free. His bodyguard’s duties ended when Beser set foot on the base.
Grim winter came early in 1944. The November wind whistled across the salt flats, numbing everything in its path.
Perry and his cooks tried hard to make Thanksgiving dinner memorable, offering pumpkin pie and an exotic fruit punch to accompany the roast turkey. The mess officer then produced an abundant supply of Cuban cigars to complete the repast.
Cuba was, in fact, very much on everyone’s mind. The latest rumor said that crews would soon fly south to sunny Havana to continue some form of special training.
Tibbets, as usual, remained tight-lipped. Groves was in regular telephone contact with him, wanting to be briefed on progress, chivvying and demanding. Tibbets would mention some of the difficulties he faced in bringing all the bomber crews to readiness. Groves would listen, grunt, and reply, “Work them hard. That’s what you are there for.”
Scientists flew in and out of Wendover daily, making new demands involving frequent changes. They asked for the bomb bays to be modified. Conventional bombs were held in place by shackles, but it was decided that for a plane carrying just one large, long atomic bomb, what was required was a single, safe, reliable hook from which the nine-thousand-pound bomb could be suspended. No such hook could be found. Bombardier Kermit Beahan was sent to Britain, and brought back the specifications for the one used by the RAF in their Lancaster bombers. It was adapted and fitted to the 393rd’s B-29s.
There were constant changes, too, in the bomb’s shape and weight. After each change, the scientists flew back to Los Alamos, telling Tibbets before they left that they were satisfied, that no more changes were contemplated, and that he could plan his training program with confidence. A few days later they would return, asking for new modifications as they discovered further aerodynamic-flow or other problems necessitating another alteration in the shape.